Fight Path: Wade Johnson eschews his hoops hopes for the MMA life

Wade Johnson was a promising enough basketball player at his small-town Arkansas high school that he had multiple college options he was considering.

He played baseball and ran track as well, but basketball was where he got most of his attention.

Then he did something that no one expected. He became a teenaged MMA fighter.

“It was during the summer, so I could so some training and take a few fights,” Johnson told MMAjunkie. “I basically had fights until basketball season came around again.”

Even though his career was put on pause then for more common athletic pursuits, Johnson would eventually have his biggest successes in the cage. He’s hoping he can build on those later this month when he faces fellow undefeated Codie Shuffield in the main event next Friday, June 21, at a V3Fights 21 card in Memphis.

At 6-0 as a pro, including a victory in V3Fights’ first professional show in January, Johnson is 22-1 combined as a professional and amateur using skills he started building when an older brother tied one arm behind his back and taught him how to jab in their backyard.

Always good at almost any sport, he has built an athletics career while laboring 60 hours a week or more, and then heading off to training. That’s the hard-work mentality he built in the small town with one gas station and one restaurant.

Quickly becoming one of Arkansas’ best-known fighters, the 23-year-old lightweight has constructed his professional success in just 16 months, using his natural striking abilities to set up his improving ground game. His accomplishments so far have caused him to reevaluate his goals, as he once just hoped to have at least one professional fight.

He has done that, and then some.

“Now I just need to see where I can go from here,” he said.

Country boy

Johnson grew up in Bradford, Ark., about 70 miles northeast of Little Rock. The town boasts a single gas station and a single restaurant.

“Tonya’s,” he said. “It’s pretty much that or get something at the gas station.”

His family is spread throughout the town as one of the most common names in the area. For entertainment, he and his friends would often head to “The Bottom,” an area near the river for hanging out. It was hunting, fighting, frog gigging and sports.

Johnson also had an early influence in MMA. His older brother would regularly bring home videos of UFC events, and he and Johnson would watch them together before heading out to the backyard.

“We had a little ring out back with some ropes, and he taught me about fighting,” Johnson said. “He would tie one arm and make me jab, put me in a corner and show me about defending myself.”

All that happened while Johnson was building a no-quit mentality. Because he and his family didn’t have much money, he said he was picked on in school. Even though he didn’t look to start fights, he sometimes found himself in scuffles, anyway.

Some of that can still be seen in his fights to this day.

“I got that attitude that I wasn’t going to take any crap,” he said. “If you whoop me one time, you’ll have to whoop me another time, too, because I’m coming back at you.”

Quick and agile, with running and jumping abilities, Johnson was a natural athlete. That caught scouts’ attention as he played for the high school teams.

But remembering the tapes he and his brother had watched, and taking what his brother had taught him out back, Johnson had another career in mind.

Undefeated

Johnson took five or six MMA fights during a summer when he was 16 on a break from basketball. Then he went back to the high school team for the season and weighed his options.

He could’ve used an athletic scholarship to go to college, but he wanted to work and make his own money. He started out on a farm where he had worked while in high school, and he moved on to working with a company that built homes, then running heavy equipment for long hours.

While he was laboring, he got back into the gym to continue his training. His goal was to have at least one professional fight, which he kept in mind through a string of successful amateur bouts.

Once he found himself needing to regularly travel out of state just to get fights, he decided to meet his goal. He made his amateur debut in February 2013, and everyone could see immediately how hard he could hit.

“I like to hit hard and bother you, make you feel it,” he said. “Then when you start to fall, I’ll be on you. I have that killer instinct.”

He showed that in building a 5-0 record heading into his most recent fight, in January 2014 at the first V3Fights professional show. His opponent, Craig Johnson, had beaten the only fighter to top Johnson during his amateur career, so when Johnson scored the five-round decision victory, it added some satisfaction.

Now he’s continuing to reset his goals as he finds more and more success. He hopes that soon includes handing Shuffield his first loss.

“He’s a big crowd favorite, but I’ve always kind of been the underdog,” Johnson said. “He’s coming off a Bellator win, and that’s what I want – to beat guys who are more well known. This is my chance.”

Award-winning newspaper reporter Kyle Nagel pens “Fight Path” each week. The column focuses on the circumstances that led fighters to a profession in MMA. Know a fighter with an interesting story? Email us at news [at] mmajunkie.com.